Inbound Marketing Blog

I'm So Sick of Hearing "Blog, Blog, Blog."

Does Your Inbound Marketing Strategy Really Need Blogging?

Are you sick and tired of hearing about how important blogging is for your inbound marketing strategy? It seems like all I hear is “Blog, Blog, Blog.” I have been hearing this same speech for the last four years from HubSpot, and now I have to listen to incessant “Blogging is like jogging” speeches from our new Chief Marketing Officer, Sam Mallikarjunan who has only been with us for a week.

Sam has already used his catch phrase multiple times in the last week and HubSpot (Sam’s former employer) has beaten the power of blogging into over 7,000 of their customers’ heads since 2006. How can they sleep at night? I know I can’t, because I wake up in cold sweats thinking about my next topic or the long tail keywords I need to start optimizing for.

Turns Out, They’re Dead Right.

Here’s the deal. They’re right! You may be tired of listening to inbound marketers talk about blogging and the benefits that come along with it, but they are dead right. The title and opening paragraph was just to get you to start reading the article. Would you have started reading with a run-of-the-mill title like The Benefits of Blogging? Probably not.

I started drinking the HubSpot Kool-Aid close to five years ago as a basic customer and I will never forget my first call with my first Inbound Marketing Consultant. His name is not important to this article (@Redbord), but this dude was insane. He wanted me to write three blog articles per week and I had never written an article in my life. If you know me, then you know that I had a few choice words in response that I can print here, but he convinced me to get started.

The Story of My First Blog Post

Following that kick off call I wrote my first article. Believe me, I didn’t like it, but something happened over the next couple of weeks as I got into it. I actually saw an increase in my website traffic. After all that’s all I wanted - more traffic, leads and revenue. I didn’t know any better at the time. Once I saw this increase I was hooked and started to kick up a notch. I got one of my friends to help me write a couple of articles and I doubled my output so we were blogging everyday and guess what? Our traffic doubled within the first 30 days of becoming a HubSpot customer and starting to blog.

The Benefits of Business Blogging

What I didn’t think about when I started blogging was all of the other benefits that come along with your blog articles. I now had content to post to my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I could insert a CTA into an article and link it to a landing page to capture lead data. How about the SEO benefits? Our organic search rankings went through the roof within 120 days, especially for long-tailed keyword phrases I never thought people would search for. The opportunities for business growth and revenue were endless.

Many days I sit back and think about what would have happened to my business if I hadn’t started blogging, found HubSpot, or had a great mentor to help get me started. I truly believe that I most likely would have gone out of business in 2009 after the recession started to take a toll on our economy.

Did I tell you how much I love blogging and inbound marketing? Don’t just take it from my experience, though.. Check out this simple infographic from Cognition Sales and HubSpot on the benefits of business blogging in 2012:

Thank you to HubSpot and Michael Redbord for converting me from a traditonal marketer to an inbound marketing specialist five years ago and welcome to our new CMO and former Head of Experimental Marketing at HubSpot, Sam Mallikarjunan.

Brian - LOL. You will hear it a lot more I am sure, but it is so true and very difficult for us to get clients to understand how important consistent content creation is.

Keep up the great work!

Posted @ Thursday, November 08, 2012 11:13 AM
by Bill Faeth

Stephanie - I was right there with you this morning. Welcome to our world. If you locate the "OFF" button please let me know. LOL

Posted @ Thursday, November 08, 2012 11:14 AM
by Bill Faeth

I think between the two of us the insanity levels were sufficiently and unreasonably high enough to engender sufficiently and unreasonably high CASH MONEY SUCCESS! But what kind of consultant would I be if I didn't tell you the link to me twitter handle is showing up as a relative link and not working? Lol

Anyway: thanks for the shoutout guys, keep it rockin. You do some of the best work in the biz nowadays and I just recommended you today.

@Redbord - You were the best anyone could ever ask for. Thanks for changing my life and my career path. How is the hair looking these days?

Posted @ Thursday, November 08, 2012 4:10 PM
by Bill Faeth

It aint bad Bill. I haven't gotten a chop in like....8 weeks. So going strong. You check out my popular blog yet at redbord.com? And by popular I mean no one's reading it because I need to get off my butt and blog more.

@Rebord - I had not checked out your blog, but just did and looks great. Love the "Good End-of-Customer-Life Experiences, with MailChimp's Cancellation Flow' article. Well done my friend, but you need to increase your volume. Blog. Blog. Blog.

Posted @ Thursday, November 08, 2012 4:28 PM
by Bill Faeth

Hey thanks for sharing our infographic. I totally understand the issues around consistent content creation. For a little for help, check our latest resource that may be of interest, The Complete Blogging Toolkit (which also contains the infographic above) http://marketing.cognition-coaching.co.uk/guide-to-business-blogging-toolkit

Stephen - Thanks for creating a great infographic and for stopping by our blog. Inbound marketing has had a tremendous impact on my life over the last five years and I think educating business owners of the importance and value of content creation and marketing is crucial for their success, but it is difficult to get them to buy in.